BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – July 2020: The National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA) recently presented their findings from the BARDIN 2017 and 2018 reports, which show the emergence of ecstasy and methamphetamine in an increasingly diverse local drug market. For the first time, the Royal Barbados Police Force reported seizures of methamphetamine amounting to 1.6 kilograms in 2017 and 0.02 gram in 2018. Seizures of 2,000 ecstasy pills were also reported in 2017 for the first time since 2012. In addition, the NCSA reported that in 3.2% and in 1.1% of participants in the Inmate Drug Rehabilitation and Counselling Programme in 2017 and 2018 respectively sought treatment for ecstasy. The above reported seizures and use of these synthetic drugs point towards a diversification of Barbados’s drug market which has been traditionally dominated by cannabis and cocaine.

UNODC’s Global SMART Programme collaborates with the Royal Barbados Police Force and the Forensic Science Centre to increase their capacity to detect and identify a wide range of synthetic drugs. This includes the provision of handheld electronic drug identification devices.


Figure: Royal Barbados Police Force Drug Seizures, 2017-2018

Source: The National Council on Substance Abuse, The Barbados Drug Information Network: Findings from the 2017 & 2018 Reports (July 2020)

The activities of the Global SMART Programme in Latin America and the Caribbean are supported by the Government of Canada.

For more information, please see:

The National Council on Substance Abuse, The Barbados Drug Information Network: Findings from the 2017 & 2018 Reports (July 2020).

UNODC, Global SMART Newsletter for Latin America and the Caribbean: Issue No. 6 (June 2020).

UNODC, “The ATS market -10 years after the 2009 Plan of Action”, Global SMART Update Vol. 22 (October 2019).

Workshop on Synthetic Drugs in Barbados.